TRANSLATION

I grew up multilingual and learned in earliest childhood to switch effortlessly between languages

- IAN FRAZIER

Even today, I find myself going back and forth, sometimes even in the same entence-say. You’ll notice that I did it just en-thay. Because I am aware of how frustrating it is when people drop foreign-language expressions into their speech and expect the listener to understand, I will translate: entence-say, in English, is the singular noun “sentence,” and en-thay is the temporal adverb “then.”

The earthy, untrammelled, and lyrical other language that I’m referring to was derived originally from Latin, hence its common name, Pig Latin. Among linguists, it’s known as Demotic Ay-speak, for the sake of precision, and to remove any allusion to pigs (which have nothing to do with the language). Other members of my linguistic community will tell you that I’m fiercely proud of my fluency and stand up for the language whenever it is misused. I even prefer to read novels in it, because it makes me feel at home. I first encountered the P.-L. version of olstoy-Tay’s “anna-Yay arenina- Kay” in the abridged translation done by Mrs. Erwin’s fifth graders. The principal translator, Billy Nolan, was a fully proficient speaker.